The Northeastern Pennsylvania (NEPA) Film Festival is a celebration of both long and short films made by local filmmakers and organizations. This year’s edition of the annual festival was held in the Waverly Community House from April 12-14. Though many films are shown to festival-goers, only a select few win awards.

The Wood Word’s own Carter Cerretani was one of those select few, as his short film “Memory Lane” took home a Best Short Film award at the festival’s conclusion. It was an unexpected but proud achievement for Cerretani, as “Memory Lane” had initially begun as a forgotten film production class project.

“This film started out as an assignment. It was a five-minute short film, and up until the night the script was due, I had completely forgotten to write a script…So I stayed up from midnight to around 1:30 in the morning just writing a script.” explained Cerretani.

According to Cerretani, “Memory Lane” was inspired by his own college experience, and how it seemingly started one morning and ended the next.

“It’s about a freshman who suddenly becomes a senior, and he tries to figure out what happened, where’d all that time go? And by the end of it, he realizes that all that time just flew by faster than he anticipated, faster than he thought,” said Cerretani.

Directing and producing “Memory Lane” was a learning experience for Cerretani, since it was his first attempt at creating a film. Subsequently, he had to jump through all of the hurdles that such a project provided. Cerretani stated that although it was difficult, he thinks the experience will help him on future projects.

“The production itself was a little bit of a nightmare, to put it lightly. I reached out to a ton of people, but only two or three got back to me, so I had to plan around that,” said Cerretani. “But that part of it went pretty well, the planning around and re-organizing, re-strategizing. If it was a larger film, that could have been a lot worse.”

This was Cerretani’s first time attending a film festival. It was pretty successful, given that “Memory Lane” won an honor, but the experience outside of simply winning was a positive one for him.

“It was really nice to see all these other films and students from other high schools and colleges, I think even a couple middle schools. It was really nice to see all the creative minds that are out there… and just see what’s going on in their heads as filmmakers,” said Cerretani.

Cerretani also mentioned that the organization of the event was impressive, and that the WVIA did a great job creating a “warm, welcoming atmosphere.”

The success of “Memory Lane” at the NEPA Film Festival goes to show that anything is possible if you believe in the quality of your creative work.

“For other people out there thinking about submitting not just films, but who want to do something creative and take a risk, I’d say give it a shot,” Cerretani said. “You never know what could happen…I didn’t expect my film to even be shown, let alone win, but look what happened. So, just don’t be afraid to take that chance.”

Fellow Marywood communications student Kevin Slywka also won a Best Short Film award, but could not be reached for comment.

Watch Memory Lane at Memory Lane, Short Film Winner for the NEPA Film Festival Student Showcase (youtube.com)

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